Effectiveness of combined hyperbaric oxygen therapy and standard recovery method in comparison with standard recovery method alone on post-marathon recovery in elite endurance athletes of Manipur: A cross-over randomized controlled trial

Marathon is a long-distance foot race of 42.195 kilometres or 26.2 miles, usually run as a road race. For elite endurance athletes, this distance is usually covered within 2 hours and 30 minutes. Marathon running elicits a wide range of physical, physiological, and biochemical responses throughout the body. All these responses can be alleviated by standard recovery method and it usually takes several weeks ,around 3 to 4 weeks, to achieve complete recovery using this method. However, early recovery is crucial for elite athletes who are regularly exposed to high-stress training and competition. Therefore, an adjuvant to the standard recovery method is desired to shorten the recovery time. In recent years, HBOT has gained considerable attention among Sports Medicine specialists as an adjuvant therapy to accelerate athletes’ muscular injury recovery, but the exact effectiveness remains unclear and limited studies in India and no published literature in Northeast India including Manipur, hence this cross-over randomized controlled trial will be conducted to determine the effectiveness of combined hyperbaric oxygen therapy and standard recovery method in comparison with standard recovery method alone on post-marathon recovery in elite endurance athletes. A sample size of 52 participants will be recruited using consecutive sampling which will be randomized into group A and group B. Outcomes will be measured using serum biochemical markers, Resting Heart Rate RHR and Brief Pain Inventory BPI at baseline and post-marathon day 1 following interventions with respect to the groups allotted. Descriptive statistics such as mean, percentages, SD and analytical statistics such as Chi-square test, student t-test and Paired t-test will be used and a p-value less than 0.05 will be taken as significant. Ethical clearance will be sought from the Research Ethics Board, Regional Institute of Medical Sciences, Imphal.